PRIZMA

IFC launched a second round of public consultation to update the IFC Performance Standards (2006), which provide also the basis for the Equator Principles. In mid June 2010, the first meeting was held in Washington DC. It attracted over 5o participants from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and industry.What are the emerging themes?

I previously blogged about the ongoing Review of 3 years of IFC Performance Standards and provided an update about IFC/MIGA’s CAO’s contributions to the review process.

According to a summary by the Bank Information Center (BIC), which seeks to influence the World Bank and other international financial institutions to promote social and economic justice and ecological sustainability, more than 50 representatives from civil society organizations (CSOs) and industry convened in mid June to contribute to the IFC Policy and Performance Standards Review process. CSOs suggested that communities should be involved in all project phases. They requested that IFC clients should document “broad community support” (BCS) for projects on an annual basis and requested disclosure of loans to financial intermediaries. CSOs also highlighted a need for IFC to apply stringent international standards on biodiversity offsets and focus on its Carbon Footprint. The inclusion of specific human rights language was also requested to help prevent workplace discrimination and/or coercion. BIC’s summry note about the consultation meeting at IFC can be accessed here.

IFC will be conducting additional consultation meetings in Manila, Moscow, Brussels, São Paolo and close up the Phase II events in Washington DC. IFC expects to have the final version of its new policies in place by mid 2011. To learn more about and participate in IFC’s review, visit IFC’s dedicated webpage here.

Mehrdad Nazari (MBA, MSc, LEAD Fellow) is Senior ESIA, CSR & GRI Advisor at PRIZMA  

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Broad Community Support (BCS), Equator Principles, Human Rights, IFC Performance Standards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.